Microsoft Reveals The Official Windows 10 System Requirements

While we’ve had an idea of the base Windows 10 system requirements for a while now, Redmond has put up a full list of the hardware and software capabilities that their new OS will need.

The new operating system is set to debut on July 29, and ahead of this momentous date, the software titan has published the entire list of system requirements for Windows 10 — and for the most part, they are quite similar to what is required to power Windows 7 and 8.1.

Meaning, if your computer or devices can run the above two operating systems, you should see no performance difference when upgrading to Windows 10.

With that said, here are the official Windows 10 system requirements:

Processor 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC

RAM 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit

HDD space 16 GB for 32-bit OS 20 GB for 64-bit OS

Graphics DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver

Display 1024×600 pixels resolution or higher

Apart from these typical system requirements, you will also need special hardware if you want to use some Windows 10 features. These are:

Cortana is only currently available on Windows 10 for the United States, United Kingdom, China, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.

Speech recognition will vary by device microphone. For better speech experience you will need a

Continuum is available on all Windows 10 editions by manually turning “tablet mode” on and off through the Action Center. Tablets and 2-in-1’s with GPIO indicators or those that have a laptop and slate indicator will be able to be configured to enter “tablet mode” automatically.

Music and Video stream through the Xbox Music or Xbox video available in certain regions. For the most up to date list of regions, please go to Xbox on Windows website.

Two factor authentication requires the use of a PIN, Biometric (finger print reader or illuminated infrared camera), or a phone with WiFi or Bluetooth capabilities.

Device Guard requires:

UEFI Secure Boot with 3rd party UEFI CA removed from the UEFI database

TPM 2.0

Virtualization Support configured on by default in the System Firmware (BIOS)

Some IT administrators may enable Secure Logon (Ctrl + Alt + Del) before bringing you to the log in screen. On tablets without a keyboard, a tablet with the Windows button maybe required as the key combination on a tablet is Windows button + Power button.

Some games and programs might require a graphics card compatible with DirectX 10 or higher for optimal performance